Many patients in a hospital or home who are physically disabled find themselves needing to be moved frequently from a lying position to a sitting or standing position. Where the patient is unable to help themselves, the movement of the patient has to be carried out by the nursing staff or carers who have to manually lift and move the patient. The heavy work involved generally means that two nurses or carers are needed to hold the patient and often from doing this work these people themselves can suffer from back damage or back strain. Much of this lifting work is also done by the family members of patients in their own homes. Sometimes it is possible to use a wheeled or overhead electrical hoist unit to lift a patient from a bed but this requires the patient to be assisted into a sling to which the hoist may be attached. The sling needs to be passed like a hammock beneath the back of the patient and this task still requires the patient to be lifted and manipulated in order to fix the sling. There have been attempts to provide a lifting frame which could be attached to a patient who was lying face upwards on a bed. Such a frame would be able to be attached to a patient from the front side by hook support members arranged to be inserted under the armpits. One such frame is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,785 and this document describes a frame which is able to be attached to the hoist unit so that the patient may be mechanically lifted from a lying position. The patient is secured by a strap which is passed behind the back of the patient's body and then is connected to both support members. The patient can then be safely lifted to a sitting or standing position by operation of the hoist. When supported by the hoist, the patient may be moved to another bed or a chair so that an alternative resting position is available.
With the aforementioned lifting frame, the patient is suspended from the chest region and there is no special provision to support the lower part of the body. The present invention was devised to be able to include a lower body support which would be adjustable for different sizes of patient and be able to assist with different patient needs such as bathing and toilet requirements.
A lifting frame which incorporates both underarm supports and support members for supporting the patient's lower torso by hooking beneath the patient's knees is disclosed in DE-A-4313494. As with U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,785, the underarm supports are part of a scissor-like framework the design of which ensures that the weight of the patient causes the underarm supports to press inwardly against the patient's sides so as to grip and support the patient by pressure against the upper rib-cage. However both are most unsuitable for lifting patients from a position in which they are lying flat on their backs, and also are unsuitable for amputees with no lower limbs.
There is therefore a great need for a lifting frame which avoids the disadvantages of the prior art, and which can be used in place of a fabric sling in a wide variety of lifting situations and with a wide variety of patients.